Directed by:
Franco ZeffirelliCinematography:
Oswald MorrisComposer:
Nino RotaCast:
Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Cyril Cusack, Michael Hordern, Alfred Lynch, Alan Webb, Victor Spinetti, Roy Holder, Mark Dignam, Bice Valori (more)VOD (4)
Plots(1)
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor bring gusto and ferocity to their roles as Katherine and Petruchio in this quintessential battle of the sexes, a vibrant adaptation of the classic Shakespeare play. When young student Lucentio (Michael York) wanders into the town of Padua, he promptly falls for the beautiful Bianca (Natasha Pyne), but before Bianca's father will let her be courted, he insists her wild, angry, older sister, Katherine (Taylor) be married. Undaunted, Lucentio and the other would-be suitors of Bianca hit upon the idea of hiring tipsy, flea-bitten nobleman Petruchio (Burton) to step up and woo the untamable "shrew." (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (2)
Recently, I was inspired by a production at the Vinohrady theater and I was intrigued by a critical debate that I would not have expected. I suppose with an author like Shakespeare, we don't wonder about many things. For example, we do not expect advanced emancipation and gender equality in a late 16th-century play. Women's suffrage slowly happened only at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. This Zeffirelli adaptation is one of the most famous and popular for many reasons. We have become accustomed to his adaptations of "Romeo and Juliet," "Hamlet," and finally Jane Eyre being among the best of what these texts have inspired. This version of "The Taming of the Shrew" is also a practical example of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton's marital acting performance. I don't like this couple any better than Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, who played Katherine and Petruccio in 1929, but it's nice to be able to see so much color in their relationship.
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I love Shakespeare's dramas as much as I love their film adaptations, which is why I couldn't pass up The Taming of the Shrew. Thanks to the modern and contemporary adaptation 10 Things I Hate About You, I already knew marginally what it was going to be about, but I still got swept away by the brisk chases and dynamic dialogue of the titular acting duo played by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The chemistry between them was – no doubt about it – essential to this particular film.
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